


Becoming Fire

by TheAngryChicken



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Accidental Self-Harm, Action/Adventure, Angst, Ba Sing Se, Deception, Families of Choice, Father Figures, Multi, Politics, Pre-Canon, Title and Tags are Subject to Change, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 06:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13757874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAngryChicken/pseuds/TheAngryChicken
Summary: Ruka dyes her hair, does her chores, helps her Father in his shop, and tries to ignore the ember going cold in her chest.The war has been going on for nearly 100 years and the world is becoming desperate. As hope for the Avatar's return fades people fight to survive the war however they can, and the secrets they keep threaten to tear families apart. When Ruka looses control she throws the lives her parents created into jeopardy. A simple mistake sends her hurtling into a land she has been taught to hide from. Will an uncertain future force her to face that golden eyed figure; the one hiding in her reflection?





	Becoming Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was built off the bones of one I posted on ff.net a long time ago. This fic takes place in what I like to call the 3 year cannon dead zone, the time after Zuko is banished, but before Aang wakes up. Big chunks of this fic will have mostly Original Characters, so if that's not your cup of tea beware.

It is the slow dripping of water that wakes Ruka. She groans and sits up, looking around at total darkness. Something isn’t right. The moon had been full the night before, the sky should be clear and bright. She reaches for her curtains to let in some light, but her hand only brushes against rock.

“Oh, please no,” she thinks as she tries to swing her legs off of the low cot. Her legs scrape across the stone floor she is already sitting on. The dripping grows louder and more urgent as she flings her hands up and to the sides. Desperately seeking something familiar she finds only rough earth walls. She knows this place, she’s been here before, she can’t stay here. The dripping is a booming thunder now. Echoes in the tiny space throw her thoughts into a jumbled panic. She struggles and fights, banging her fists against cold stone, but it grows closer and closer. She’ll be crushed if she stays in here, surrounded by suffocating earth. She needs to get out, she needs to see!

Fire blooms in her palms as she sits up in her cot with a gasp. Ruka pulls her arms in against her sides to smother the flames, biting her lip to hold back a shout of pain and fear. Her light, honey eyes scan the room, finally settling on thin curtains. She stretches to reach them, almost falling in her urgency, and rips them open. Sick, morning, light floods the room and for a moment Ruka stares uncomprehending. Her ragged gasps fill the familiar space. As she settles back on her bed a sharp pain reminds her of the smothered flames and she lifts her cotton sleep shirt. Her sides are riddled with burns of varying age. Most are modeled pink or shiny spots that catch the light. She has gotten worse burns from her father’s wax, but angry red hand prints are visible above it all.

Ruka lets her head sink into her hand and breathes. The last tremors of her nightmares begin to subside as she lets her feet sink to the floor. For a moment she tries to think of some way she can hide this latest incident from her parents. It's useless; they always seem to know. Her mother is going to be angry with her again. Her father will shake his head in disappointment. She prays that's all they'll do instead of staring at her all morning in that new way they have.

It started a little over a year ago. The fire that she has fought to keep inside her for so long began to come out, no matter how hard she fights to hold it down. During the day it is easier to control. Her palms may grow hot, her chest will burn when she’s angry or upset, but she can take a deep breathe and reign it in. The problem is at night when she can’t calm herself. She can’t stop the fire in her nightmares anymore. When her parents found out they started staring at her with a mixture of disappointment and pity. Now it feels like a farmer who has to put down a prized ostrich horse.

She stumbles to her cabinets and leans against them. Carefully, she pulls a light green, sleeveless robe on over a clean cotton shirt and ties the waist tight. The robe is a hardy, tough fabric without any design or embroidery. It can hold up to scrubbing out cooled wax and dye stains. She throws her hair up into a tight knot, and examines her roots to see when they will need to be darkened again. Getting ready to march out of her bedroom she rolls up her sleeves. When she glances down at her arms she notices a few too many burns speckling her skin. Being a candle maker’s daughter goes a long way for explaining mysterious burns here and there. Recently there are too many to believe. The girl takes a deep breath to steady herself, pulling down her sleeves, and heads out to face the day.

“Good morning Mama!” Ruka calls as soon as she enters the kitchen. Her family’s home is modest. One big room acts as their kitchen, living, and eating space with two bedrooms off to the sides. It’s nothing special, but it’s enough for the three of them. Her father has a workshop out back that is almost the size of the main house.

Her mother turns to smile at her from where she is surrounded by herbs and flowers. She must be making infused oils for the candles and perfumes. The smile falls when she narrows her too golden stare, seeing right through Ruka in the way only a mother can.

“You burned yourself again.” Her mother said, putting down her bunch of lavender. It wasn’t a question.

“It was only a little this time.” Ruka refuses to meet her mother’s frustrated gaze. She dishes herself out a bowl of rice porridge from where it sits near the fire to distract herself.

Her mother shakes her head. “What did it this time? The nightmares again?”

She doesn’t answer, just sets into her porridge with determination.

The woman sighs and moves to sit by her daughter at their low table. “Ruka, your father and I are trying our best to be sympathetic, but this is starting to get out of hand.” She reaches out to lay a gentle hand on her daughter’s arm. “People are going to start noticing. If you can’t get this under control we’re going to have to find something to do about it.”

Ruka finally looks up to meet her mother’s eyes and winces at what she sees there. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m trying but I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any training to-”

“Shhh!” Her mother cuts her off. “Don’t be a child, you know you don’t talk about that! Your father and I aren’t like you and there’s no one we can go to for help.” The hand on her arm tightened to a hard grip. “You’re going to have to figure this out on your own or we’re going to have a problem soon.”

“That’s not fair! I didn’t ask for this!” Ruka glares at her mother as she tries to keep her voice down.

“I know it’s not fair darling, but this isn’t a peaceful time when things can be fair.” The woman gets up and goes back to her oils, keeping her back to her daughter. “This war has been raging for almost a hundred years now. Life is hard, and some things that happen to us and those we care for aren’t fair.”

Ruka pushes the spoon around in the porridge a few more times. They have had this conversation so many times she can’t bring herself to argue with her mother. She stands up suddenly, throwing her left overs in the waste bucket. “I have to get our herb’s from the market.”

“Ruka!” Her mother’s warning tone follows her to the door, but she doesn’t turn back as she slams it shut behind her.

It isn’t fair! The brunette fumes as she stomps down the dirt road, away from her house and towards the main part of the village. It was so easy for her parents to tell her to control her fire when they aren’t firebenders themselves. Her whole life they have told her every day to hold in her fire, to never ever use it, to pretend it isn’t there.

After Ruka outgrew throwing sparks it had been easy to forget the fire. She gathered up all her little flames and packed them into an ember that sits beneath her ribs. It has stayed there for years without ever flaring up. Now, though, she can’t control it anymore. Sometimes the little ember feels more like a lump of coal, like her fire had gone out and she is cold and tired. Other times it flares into life. Her fingers burn and before she can hold it in she’s throwing sparks like a child all over again. She groans in frustration and kicks a stone off the dirt path.

The stretch of the village they call the “market” is only a short street with a few buildings on either side. The buildings in this part of the village are different. They’re thin and squeezed in side by side, but instead of bent stone they are well constructed wood. Many of them are shops with their owners living in the floors above. A few days a week some of the craftsmen and farmers from the outer edge of the village set up stalls to sell their goods.

Luckily for Ruka today is not a market day; she is able to walk down the street without feeling like the whole villages’ eyes are on her. She takes a deep breath and smells her destination before she arrives. The shop she is heading for is only one floor with a porch on the front. Above the door there is an image of a lavender bundle, and all around the porch roof hangs bundles of dried plants, releasing their aroma into the air.

Mama Tal, the shop owner, is sitting at the top of the steps in her old chair. “Good morning Ruka,” the old woman says as she approaches, “how are the bee moths doing?”

The old woman is a beauty even now, Rukka thinks. She stands tall and straight despite her age, and her hair is a dark silver instead of white. Mama Tal has always dressed the part of a city woman. Instead of rough, shapeless aprons she wears soft fabrics that fit her form. Her features are sharp and pointed, but the smile she wears keeps her eyes soft.

The girl pauses after the first two steps and leans against the railing. “They’re doing good Mama Tal, another week and we’ll have some honey to sell, too.”

“Oh wonderful! I’ll expect some with your next payment. Two jars! You tell your father that, since the stingy bastard can’t seem to think of it on his own!”

“Of course.” Ruka laughs and follows the elderly woman. Ruka has always loved and hated visiting Mama Tal. The old woman grew up in the lower ring in Ba Sing Seh and is wild, foul mouthed, and just a little crazy. She is a breath of fresh air compared to the stuffy citizens of this tiny village. Whenever she is free she will round up all the children in the village and teach them math, reading, and writing. The last time one of the farmers told her not to waste the children’s time learning useless skills she chased them out of her store with her cane. The whole time she was shouting for them to piss off.

“Why don’t you hang around and have some tea?” The old woman asks heading straight for the teapot on the fire. “You’re early this morning and that old man of yours can handle some candles on his own!”

“I don’t know, the last time I left him alone with the temple’s candle order they came out pink.”

The old woman lets out a cackle as Ruka forces herself through the doorway. Immediately she is assaulted by the scent of the place. The room is lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, each packed full with dried herbs, oils, perfumes, and even some of her father’s candles. Ruka hates being in this room and being assaulted by the smell of a hundred different scents.

“Isn’t it awfully hot to be wearing long sleeves?” Mama Tal calls to Ruka as the girl hangs out in the open door as long as possible. “Or do those strict parents of yours not want you showing too much skin? Women can show as much damn skin as they want! Roll those sleeves up girly, I won't tell a soul.” She fills two cups with a light tea from the pot.

“No, no, I don’t mind the heat.” Ruka loves this woman and wishes her parents would let her stay and chat, but they have always discouraged her from visiting long with anyone.

“If they knew who we are,” she can hear her father’s stern voice, “they would turn on us in a second. They don’t like you, Ruka, they like your lie.”

Well, maybe she would try to visit longer if it wasn't here. The shop's overpowering scent always leaves her with a headache.

Mama Tal’s voice pulls Ruka back to the present. “They’re no fun, those parents of yours.” The old woman said as she set up the small table she keep behind her counter. “Everyone is stiff in this nation. They're all a bunch of dusty old traditions and stubborn people following them. They're like the rocks they love so much! Just because you can bend them doesn’t mean you should act like them!” She pulls a plate of lavender cookies wrapped in cloth out from behind the counter, and plops them down along with the tea.

“No hanging out by the door like some stranger!” The woman snapped as she flops down into her chair. Once they are both seated Mama Tal points a gnarled finger at the girl. “You’re parents though! I thought mine were strict! You’ve never lived girl, they keep you locked up in that little shop making candles!”

“I’m not locked up.” Ruka snorted. “Maybe I’m just as boring as the rest of the village.”

“Hah! I know the look in your eyes! You’re a rebel like me! You smile and make your candles, but in that head of yours you hate every minute of it. You’re meant for greater things than this little village!”

Ruka hides a laugh in her tea. “This village can barely handle you. I think if I were any more rebellious it would be too much.”

“Bah,” She grumbled and flicked a hand at the dark haired girl. “I bet you’re parents could handle it if they got the sticks out of their asses.”

“My parents watch wax cool for a living.”

“That’s true!” Mama Tal laughed. “But the people who were born in this village? Boring! All of them! You and I, and your parents? We weren’t born here and the only people that end up here are the ones who are tired of people telling them what to do. You don’t move to this village, you run here. So what could a couple of candle makers be running from?”

Ruka shuffles in her seat uneasily as the tea begins to go cold. It wasn’t the first conversation she's had where Mama Tal told her to live a little, but this one is getting a little too close to the truth. “Maybe you’re right, but I still have herbs to deliver and candles to make. I better get going.”

As Ruka moves to stand Mama Tal reached out an arm towards her. Her hand caught the edge of her teacup and sends its content spilling across the table. Ruka isn’t fast enough to pull her arm back and the pale liquid spills across her sleeve. The heavy cloth soaks up the tea like a sponge and hangs heavily off her arm.

“Oh! Clumsy old bat. Let me get that for you dear.” The old woman pulls a cloth out of her pocket and grabs the girl’s wrist.

“That’s alright, don’t worry about it.” Ruka tries to pull away but Mama Tal's grip feels like iron.

“Nonsense.” She says and lifts up the girl’s sleeve.

Ruka can tell the moment Mama Tal’s eyes find the burns. The old woman yanks the sleeve up to her elbow, grabbing her other arm and doing the same. What looked like a few too many burns this morning looks horrible out in the open, under the scrutiny of another. Her arms are covered in burns and the old woman hisses through her teeth.

“I always thought that man was suspicious!” She snarls. “So cold to his own daughter and wife!”

Panic washes over Ruka like freezing water poured down her spine. “Mama, listen, it’s nothing. I was clumsy with the wax and it spilled. It happens.”

“Don’t lie and defend him Ruka! I’ve met plenty of parents who smack around their kids to make them listen, but this is torture!” Her voice softens. “You don’t have to let him do this.”

The girl struggles, trying to loosen the old woman’s grip without hurting her. “It’s not him, that’s not what’s going on.”

Mama Tal is looking hard into her eyes, but there is no sign that she believes the panicked girl.

“Please you have to listen!”

“Then who is doing this?” Mama Tal gently shakes the wrist she is holding. “Where did these burns come from?”

Ruka stopped, and for the first time in a long time her mind goes blank. She doesn’t have a lie, well crafted with her parents, to cover something like this. She can’t think of anything to tell this woman to convince her she’s wrong.

“It was an accident.” She tried again, her voice sounding weak to her own ears. “I spilled wax. It happens.”

Mama Tal shakes her head. “Don’t go home, dear. Stay with me. No one will believe whatever lie your father can come up with.”

“But-”

The old woman cut her off. “The people of this village will protect you, and your father is only one man. You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore, he’s not even an earthbender!”

“Please, you’re wrong and I need to go home. Just let me go home!” Ruka can feel herself jittering with panic, the ends of her fingertips beginning to grow warm. With one last tug she rips her wrists away and pulls her hands in close to her chest.

“Please Mama Tal, don’t say anything to anyone. I promise I’ll come back tomorrow and we can talk about it then, but right now I have to go.”

Ruka knows she’s pale, she knows she looks scared and maybe half crazed, but she doesn’t care. She only knows she needs to get out of here.

“Alright, your basket it there on the counter.” Mama Tal finally sighed. “I won’t say anything for now, but if I don’t see you tomorrow I can’t promise anything.”

“Thank you,” Ruka murmurs as she scoops up her basket and hurries out the door. The fresh air is a relief from the suffocating perfume of the store, but her head is still spinning from all that had happened. Her parents are going to be furious, but she runs home as fast as she can anyway.

She runs all the way home and doesn’t hesitate when she reaches the door to her father’s workshop.

“Dad!” she calls as she bursts in. “I need to talk to you and mom! Something happened!”

“Are you okay Ruka?” Her father asked as he comes up and touches his daughter's pale face.

“I’m okay, but something bad happened and I didn’t know what to do.”

Her father freezes and levels a glare at her. Ruka has always been a little unnerved by her father’s gaze; so much closer to that damning gold than her mother's or her own.

“You didn’t hurt anyone, did you?” His voice is stern and a little threatening.

Ruka takes a step back towards the doorway, surprised at the hurt she feels that her father even has to ask. “No, of course not.” Her father nods and strides, limping, towards the house.

Ruka tries to breathe through the feeling of dread for the conversation to come. Her parents have always been very strict with her, but she understands why. She knows the importance of the lies and hiding. When she started losing control of her fire she made it harder for all three of them to keep up their disguises. Her parents became cold towards her, sometimes it even feels as though they hate her. Her mother goes out less, now. She is nervous and stressed whenever she has to leave the house, and she never wants to be seen with Ruka.

Her father hardly speaks to her anymore. The two refuse to tell their daughter about the culture they came from, but when father and daughter were alone together in the shop sometimes the man’s tongue would loosen a little. The closest Ruka ever used to get to the home she’s never been to was when her father would tell stories about learning candle making at the feet of his father. He told her stories about the first time he had met her mother, the daughter of a prestigious glass blowers family, who had never had a knack for the trade. From the way he spoke she has a feeling that her father used to be a very proud man. Here in the Earth Kingdom that pride is stripped away. He is plagued by a limp as old as she is and has to keep his head down and avoid eye contact. Now he doesn’t tell her those stories anymore, now he only speaks to her if she’s spoken to him first.

When they enter the kitchen her mother is waiting at the door, her eyes serious.

“I heard the door slam.” She says as Ruka’s father closes the door tightly behind them. He gestures for them all to sit and the girl settles uneasily across the table from her parents.

Ruka holds her breath and waits for her parents to say something, but instead they just stare at her expectantly.

She can’t help but wonder if telling them is a bad idea. Maybe if she goes back to Mama Tal’s tomorrow after she’s had time to think of something to say she can make it work out. She knows she shouldn’t, though. One thing her parents have always drilled into her is the importance of their lie.

“Mama Tal saw my arms.” Ruka says in an exhale. She can’t meet her parent’s eyes.

“What- Ruka what does that matter? I thought we agreed when this started that wax burns was an acceptable excuse.” Her father pulls up his sleeve and lays his arm across the table, showing little pock marks of burns from a lifetime of work.

Ruka shoved her hands into her lap. She hasn’t shown her parents her arms in over a month. They knew it was happening, they could tell from the nightmares, their store of burn saulve that goes missing, the long sleeves in the heat, but Ruka is always careful to hide her arms from everyone, even her parents.

“Ruka.” Her father says warningly when she doesn’t give a response.

She closes her eyes and yanks up her sleeve, throwing her arm up on the table to lay beside her fathers.

“Cinders,” her father cursed. Next to his arm Ruka’s is small and thin and riddled in burns, some as big as her own palm. Most aren’t severe, only a light ghost of fingers, but there is little untouched skin to be seen.

“What have you been doing!? You never said you were mutilating yourself!” her father shouts.

“I couldn’t help it,” Ruka hunches into herself, pulling her shoulders up towards her ears. “I made the sparks stop, but it was like the heat was still trapped inside.”

“Spirits be damned Ruka! You should have told us!”

Ruka feels a flush of anger at her father’s words. How dare he! Her parents are the ones who shunned her when she lost control. They’re the ones who started treating her like a liability; a threat to their fabricated lives. She has never wanted the fire, and her parents have never lifted a finger to help her do anything but hold it in.

“And what would you have done!” Ruka shouts, unable to stop herself. “You tell me all the time that you’re not like me, there’s no one here like me! I have to figure it out on my own! What would telling you have done besides make you hate me more!?”

“Ruka, darling, we don’t hate you.” Her mother tries to hush her, but her father stares at her with a thunderous gaze.

“But you do,” The girl fights back the tears that well up in her eyes. “I see the way you look at me like I’ve ruined everything. You don’t talk to me anymore, you don’t want to be seen with me anymore. Why would I have ever thought that you would help me?”

“Ruka-”

“Enough!” Her father shouts, slamming his hands down on the table. The girl and her mother jump and notice the smell of burning in the air.

Thin tendrils of smoke are escaping up between Ruka’s fingers from the table below. She hadn’t felt a things until her father drew her attention to it. She gasps and tries to stop herself. Flames replace the smoke snaking between her fingers and she pulls her hands back in pain as she feels them burn. Her father pours the contents of a vase, flowers and all, over the two smoldering handprints scorched into the wood.

“Let me see!” Her mother reaches for Ruka’s hands but the girls pulls them back against her chest.

“It’s fine! It’s nothing.” She grits her teeth and clasps her hands together in an attempt to hide her angry red palms.

“This problem is obviously worse than you were letting on, Ruka. I think - I believe,” Her father hesitates, turning towards her mother, ”that our only solution is for you to leave.”

It feels like the world slams to a halt.

“What?” Ruak asks.

Her father sighs and refuses to meet her eyes. “In our original plan your mother and I never anticipated having a child, a firebender.” Ruka has to lean in to hear her father’s lowered voice.

“We can’t fix this, and if you can’t fix this then you need to go.”

“You never anticipated having a child.” Ruka repeats, unbelieving.

Neither of her parents will even look at her. She’s not so naive to think all children are planned for, but here her parents are telling her like it’s a reason she should go. It almost sounds like they blame her for being born.

“So what? I’m just a mistake? A flaw in your plan? You put up with me as long as you can stand it and then just abandon me like you abandoned your country?” She knows it is a low blow, but at this moment she refuses to take back her words.

Her father is furious.

“How dare you! You have no idea what you’re talking about, what your mother and I sacrificed to be here!” He hisses, jabbing a finger at her over the table.

“I don’t know because you’ve never told me! I’ve always done as you’ve said! I’ve made sacrifices, too!” Ruka angrily wipes at the tears that have finally escaped. “I’ve lived my whole life never belonging anywhere; never really knowing anyone to keep our secrets. Do I really matter so little that you’ll abandon me at the first sign of trouble? Don’t I at least deserve to know why?” 

“Don’t be silly Ruka, of course you are important to us.” Her mother reaches out to her, but the girl keeps her hands pulled in close to her chest.

“Then please don’t send me away.”

Finally, her father meets her eyes. She wonders what he sees there, if he can tell how desperate she is for them not to do this. She doesn’t want to leave, she’s never been on her own before.

His gaze rests on her for a long moment. He doesn’t say anything, and Ruka begins to fear that she’s fighting a losing battle. Being isolated in this tiny village her whole life and discouraged from accepting any Earth Kingdom cultures has left her frighteningly dependant on her parents. She wouldn’t have any idea where to go, what to do, or how to live. She doesn’t think she can keep this lie going all on her own. She needs her parents far more than they need her.

“You’re right. We’ve asked a lot of you without giving you any reason to have faith in us.” Her father says slowly.

He braces his hands on the table, pushing himself up into a standing position. “We’ve never succeeded by making panicked decisions. I don’t want you to leave the house for a few days.”

The relief Ruka felt vanishes. “But Mama Tal is expecting me to go back tomorrow. If she doesn't see me she’ll tell people.”

Her mother returns to the fire and begins making tea.

Her father scoffs. “Besides a bit of aloofness there is nothing for people to complain about. The old hedgewitch can crow all she wants, there is nothing suspicious about a candlemaker having burns.”

Ruka wonders if she should stop there. It’s a small victory that her parents aren’t trying to throw her out of the house right now, but she has a bad feeling about ignoring Mama Tal’s warning.

“She said you’re cold. She thinks you’re hurting me and that the other villagers would believe her.”

Ruka watches her father’s back as he stops. Every muscle goes taut and for a moment she thinks he’s going to shout at her again.

“My decision is still the same.” His voice is quiet but strained. “Don’t leave the house for a few days. We will figure out a solution to all of this. If we do have to leave it will be together.”

The man limps to the door and leaves, his uneven steps thumping all the way until the workshop door opens and closes.

Ruka has lived a lie since the day she was born. She wraps false words around herself like a blanket, and has learned to read dishonesty in someone’s tone like a second language.

She wonders if her father knows she doesn’t believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Unfortunately, I can't promise any real schedule with this fic. I'll update when I can!


End file.
